The Wanderer

I wander among the hills of alien lands Where Nature her prerogative resigns To Man; where Comfort in her shack reclines And all the arts and sciences commands. But in my soul The eastern billows roll— I hear the voices of my native strands. My lingering eyes, a lonely hemlock fills With grace and splendor rising manifold; Beneath her boughs the maples spread their gold And at her feet, the silver of rills. But in my heart A peasant void of art Echoes the voices of my native hills. On every height a studied art confines All human joy in social pulchritude; The boxwood frowns where beckoning birches stood, And where the thrushes caroled Fashion dines. But through the spreading cheer The shepherd’s reed I hear Beneath my Lebanon terebinths and pines. And though no voices here are heard of toil, Nor accents least of sorrow, nor the din Of multitudes, nor even at the Inn The City is permitted aught to spoil, Yet in my breast, A shack at best, Laments the mother of my native soil. Even where the sumptuous solitudes deny A shelter to a bird or butterfly, As in the humblest dwelling of the dale A gracious welcome’s shown the passer-by; But evermore clear Allwhere I hear The calling of my native hut and sky. Land of my birth! a handful of thy sod Resuscitates the flower of my faith; For whatsoever the seer of science sayth, Thou art the cradle and the tomb of God; And forever I behold A vision old Of Beauty weeping where He once hath trod.